I Hate August (original)
by peachykeenage
Summary: As a child, Grayson Redding grew up with the burden of his mother's miscarriage, psychopathy, and later, his mother's suicide. As an adult, the love of Grayson's life begins to go through the same insanity as his mother. His innocent mind blinds him to what he's done to "help" her. (Has literally nothing to do with Harry Potter so)
1. Prologue

**Prologue: September of 1998**

August isn't the kind of girl someone paid attention to. She never complained about that either. She liked being remembered as nothing. She always adored everything ugly and no one understood that about her. Her lips were an almost dead blue and her hair was a disgusting blonde with blood red streaks running down her scalp. The way she listened to dumb music like _LCD Soundsystem_ and _The Smiths_ always got under my skin. She never had anything good to say about anything or anyone. When she told me she wanted to murder the man who checked out her items at Walmart I never thought anything of it. When she told me she laughed when she ran over that puppy I thought it was a joke. I never saw the signs of her psychopathic tendencies. I never thought she would get this bad. To the point where I couldn't help her anymore. The way she pulled her hair out in her sleep. The way she sat on the diving board at midnight and sung so sorrowfully above the reflection of the moon. The way she always stood on the edge of skyscrapers until I pulled her back. I never saw _this_ coming.

I would be an idiot if I scolded her for doing this to me. Even if I could I wouldn't. She would just give me that stupid glare, spit on me, and say, "You're an idiot anyway, Gray." Her way of loving someone is so different than yours and mine. She really drove me insane. Sorry, my bad. _Drives_. As in, still does. She still drives me insane.

Sometimes I'll walk down an aisle at a grocery store and hear her voice behind me. " _You stupid fucking idiot, Gray. You are supposed to stay with me, remember? You said you would. You promised._ " All the hairs on the back of my neck arise in sync with each other. Those words, " _you promised_ " always get me. I did promise her I would go where she goes. "I wouldn't ever leave you, August. Even if I wanted to." That was our thing. " _Even if I wanted to_." Sometimes I'll lay in bed and feel her lips on mine, sucking the blood from each sore I had bitten out of anxiousness. Sliding her tongue into my mouth like a knife. I'll open my eyes and swear I see her. "August?" I'll holler, grabbing the bedside table for my Ray Bans. By the time I got them on my face, blood pressure exasperating, and breath quickened, she's gone.

When I make my way to work there are moments when I have to rub my eyes because I'll convince myself I saw her down the street or in the passenger's seat holding my hand that is grasping the stick shift. As I listen to the mix tapes she made me for road trips I hear her voice. I replay the day I took her to the beach. She's sitting in the passenger's seat, running her fingers over my lips as I drive. Her bikini top was peeking out through her _The Cure_ shirt that had about 4,000 holes in it. "Grayson, come on. This isn't shit music." I roll my eyes at her, biting the tip of her finger. She shoves her whole finger down my throat and I gag. She was always doing stupid shit like that. "You'll see one day." Was all she said.

August was never in love with me but we would talk about our future together. I planned on marrying her. She was the only girl crazy enough for me. Besides the fact that she was _actually_ psychopathically delusional I never let that stop me from falling in love with her. Her stupid smile that only appeared when something bad happened to her. Her abrupt honesty that always hurt everyone's feelings. She always told me she hated me and that she wished she could kill me, but I know it just her showing me she loved me. Sometimes in her sleep she would cry and mutter " _Don't leave me, Gray. Don't leave me._ " She never told me she loved me but it was enough to know that I had gotten farther than most men had with her. I knew deep in my heart that if I let her go no one else would love her. No one could have handled her like I did. As soon as she began to get bad I could have guaranteed that any other man would have dumped her right there. We were never dating but it didn't matter to me. I loved her.

I used to write little notes in her diary. "I hate you most." They would always read. She always said it was most powerful to hate someone so it really means something when she hates. "It's the strongest feeling a person can feel." She always said. So to show her I felt strongly towards her I would always tell her how much I "hated" her. However she felt loved was how I was willing to love her. She used to call that "bullshit love." To her "bullshit love" looked sweet. It looked like the kind of love you felt when you hated someone with all your heart and all that was left was love. Or something similar to love. She wasn't a huge believer of love or the whole idea of "I'll never let go, Jack" kind of love, but she sure believed in "bullshit love."

That's why I'm explaining all this to you. See, if I hadn't told you any of this and just gone right into what kind of a life August lived she would seem completely anal. More than she may already seem to you. If I had just jumped right into the way we hated each other with the utmost vibrant of hates you would have turned your nose to these words. You would have never saw her the way I saw her. Fell in love with her the way I did. As hard as I did. As frequently as I did.

Maybe her life will sound a little better than yours or mine.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter One: January of 1981**

When I was nine years old I watched my mother's lifeless body slowly float further and further away from my father and I. Day after day, sitting at our dining table with her long auburn hair touching her fingertips as she moved only to sip the coal she called coffee. Her soul disappeared within herself each rotation of the sun, rubbing deeper and deeper into the soil. Every day she challenged the wall to another one of her staring contests. During dinner my dad held her hand as she barely noticed him or I sitting there on opposite sides of her, always in silence. She whispered to me sometimes, only to say, "Oh my, your dress is so beautiful. You look so beautiful on your big day! You are the daughter I've always wished for!" still looking at the wall. I would always look up at dad when she would say things like this. He always seemed most interested in his food when she would say things like that.

When I was ten years old I finally got the courage to ask my father about it. He was out in the garage messing with something on his Ford Model A. For some reason everything on that car needed fixed because he was never inside. He was always out in the garage fixing God knows what on that car. "Dad," my squeaky adolescent voice let out, "what's wrong with mom?" My father put down the towel he was using for scrubbing the windows. He ran his ink rotted fingers through the blond patches of what thin hair he had left. Fresh wrinkles traced his face- up and down- like a treasure map. He looked me straight in the eye with a stern glance that said "I want to hit you for saying that but I won't because you are ten years old." My inquisitive eyes rolled all over my father's face, really wanting that answer. "Son," he began, "there are somethings you may never understand and your mom just may be one of them." I sat there wondering how abnormal that was to hear. I knew women were difficult beings, I had heard that from my best friend, Darren, who had a fifteen year old sister, but my own mother? I'm not supposed to understand my mother?

"But Dad, why does she stare at the wall? Why doesn't she talk anymore? Dad, she calls me her da-". My father picked up a screwdriver from his toolbox and threw it at the garage door. "Now you listen to me, son, you listen carefully. Your mother has been through something no woman should ever go through, and I mean never! You respect your mother and accept her as she is, you hear?" His voice was hoarse as his last words echoed around the whole house- maybe even all of Ohio heard it. "Yes sir." was all I was able to get out. My father sighed, slowing his heart back to normal. I saw his expression change so drastically I thought he might be having a stroke. His face turned slightly upside down and so did the emotion in the room. I watched as my father put one hand on his heart and turned his face from me.

"Dad?" I really did think he might have been having a stroke or something. "Grayson.." His face wasn't facing mine which worried me more. After the hanging silence of my name he turned around to face me. He was crying. Not like sobbing or anything, but one tear from each eye was quietly traveling down his cheeks. "Son," he said as he bent down to my level. I wasn't that short so he had to look up at me from where he was kneeling but it was the thought that counted. "I know how hard it may be to deal with your mother's...well her... _condition."_ He wiped the left tear from his chin and next his tear duct. "But I'm going to need you to give your mother some grace." I looked down at my father, confused.

"Grace who?" My father laughed for the first time in a long time.

"Grace isn't a person, son. Grace is an action. It's when you give someone a free pass sometimes to feel the way they do because you feel bad for them."

"You mean like that thing in bingo, Dad? That 'free space'?"

"Kinda, Gray. It's like when she calls you her daughter. You need to give her grace and allow her to call her your daughter because she's going through something right now and that's part of her grieving, son."

"What about when she sitting and staring at the walls all day or when she wakes up the whole house to wash dishes at 3 AM?"

"Those are times we give her grace. Do you think you can do that? Do you think you can give her grace?"

"Yes sir."

"Good."

That was a day of a lot of "firsts" and "lasts". It was the first and last time I had seen my father cry. It was the first and last time he had talked about my mother. It was the first and last time I heard about giving anyone grace.

It was the first time I witnessed someone kill themselves and it was the last time I saw my mother.


	3. Chapter 2

_Chapter Two: (Still) January of 1981_

Yep. That's right. My mom shot herself in the upstairs bedroom across from the bathroom. The bedroom with the yellow and blue fighter planes dazzling from the ceiling. The bedroom with the _Ohio State_ banner as a shield over the window, deflecting the sun's burning gaze. The bedroom with the exaggerated blue carpet that always tickled my feet when I walked over it. It was _my_ bedroom. My mother shot herself in _my_ bedroom. Down in the garage, my father and I were about to work on the car together. I pulled off my august-orange t shirt that read " _GO OHIO GO!"_ in big white letters. The rush of "oh my gosh, my father is going to let me touch his Model A" hit me like a truck.

"Screwdriver." My father had a way of mumbling and i had a way of not understanding tools.

"Huh?"

My father pointed annoyingly, as if already regretting his decision of letting me help him.

"Dad, could you just-"

My father threw down his grease stained towel and cursed my way.

"Dammit, son. Are you some kind of queer? Why don't you know what a screwdriver is? Have I taught you anything?" He whipped the sweat from his almost bald dripping head in overwhelmed anger. My father had never called me queer before. He always talked about "the sins of homosexuals" and what a world with "queers" meant for our future. For all I knew in my ten year old mind "queers should be killed." My father called me queer. Should I be killed?

My father walked impatiently to the toolbox, snatching the screwdriver up and shoving it into my hands. "This...is a screwdriver. You use it for screws, son. Got it?" His voice sounded so passive aggressive that it scared me. Maybe this had something to do with our talk earlier or maybe it had something to do with my mother in general. Her usual fits and spurs. Maybe it wasn't even the fact that I asked but the time that I asked. He was having a good time in his garage alone, his own thoughts, his own life and I just happened to break his time by asking about my mom. Overall, I hope he knows I'm sorry and if he ever reads this I hope he's happy with all that I've done for him. Anyway, enough with the sappy background.

My mother shot herself. That's the main idea. The summary of this whole story. Maybe that's what started this all. When my father heard the gunshot he was in the middle of explaining how a wrench worked and what to do with it. The sound echoes our entire house still to this day. Even after we moved out. Maybe even the whole world heard it but it had no relevancy to anyone but my dad and I so no one paid attention. I remember my dad having the strangest expression on his face when he heard it. Almost like a " _there it is"_ kind of thing. It was like he had been waiting for that sound, that moment, since a year ago when I was nine years old. When my mother's memories and personality fell off the face of the earth. My father didn't even flinch. He didn't run upstairs and scream until sundown because his wife had just shot herself. He didn't do anything except look at what with that stupid look and set down the wrench. "Son…" was all he said at first. We both walked up the wide wooden steps of our garage and into the house. He and I walked around the house and up the stairwell. He was grasping the right handle of our staircase as if trying to stop himself from going up there. His body was fighting himself. He knew what he was about to see but he kept walking. This goes on the list of: "reasons I hate my dad and love him so much."

He loved my mom.

I followed him up those stairs, not understanding my fate, innocence blinding me in all directions. My blond curls covered my eyes as if to warn me not to look at what my mother had done to herself but instead I pushed them aside and slumped over those stairs. My father looked into the bathroom first, pushing the door wide open as if ripping the band aid right off only to be surprised by the idea of there never been a band aid there at all. He next checked their bedroom. My mother must have just gotten up from one of her naps because she had left the door wide open. My dad and I stayed quiet in respect for the moment. My father obviously knew more about what was going on than I did so I respected that and stayed silent. He seemed so scared but so calm. As if he were just glad he didn't have to keep waiting anymore.

He finally swung open my bedroom. I'm not going to go into too much detail of what I saw but I do know that my exaggerated blue rug was now a warm and wet metal scented purple. Her blond hair had been colored with blood red streaks. She didn't resemble my mother anymore. I remember wondering where a large portion of her skull went. My eyes opened wide in alertness and I tumbled backwards. I couldn't even scream. _Where was my mother? Where was my father_. They were both right here but missing pieces of them, my mother quiet literally. Why _my_ bedroom? I won't ever know for sure.

My father held his hand over his still mouth as if to stop himself from an abrupt vomit. He looked at me for a second. For a few months I lost him too.

"I'll go call the police." He stood there for a few more seconds before running to the bathroom and throwing up all he could into our toilet. I stared at her lifeless body and for a few hours while sitting on the floor beside her. After the third hour I was holding her hand. The police still hadn't come because they had something they were doing I guess and because she was already long dead they said to call the hospital or something. I began to run my fingers through her bloody hair. A few times my fingers brushed her skull and I turned to my side and threw up each time.

"Mommy?" I whispered into her ear. Her blue eyes were open still but I liked it that way because she had the prettiest eyes in the world. "Where did you go?"

She didn't answer of course but something told me that she wasn't gone. Something inside my head told me I would run into her again. Do you see where this is going? If not, that's alright too. I'll keep going.

By the time my father had come back into the room he had someone come in with him. The ambulance man was here to "collect my mother" as if she were a fucking baseball card. The man was whispering furiously at my father while he stayed silent. I didn't turn around to face this man or the argument but I overheard pieces of the confrontation.

"...let him see this...bad for him...what kind of a father...abuse…" I almost threw up again. That wasn't the first time I had heard the word "abuse". In first grade the school counselor asked where my parents were all the time and why I came in with cigarette burns on my forearms. I always told them that I was being bad but they never believed me. My father stopped doing that when I was eight because before then he used to drink. He always apologized the night after for anything he did while he was drunk. He stopped touching me when I was seventeen but after that he started calling me things like "faggot" and "pussy". I brought that up with my social worker, Francie, recently and she said that she was very sorry for making me talk about this but I didn't see what was wrong.

At the funeral it was different than other family funerals that we went to. Not even because it was my mother but because of other factors.

No one was there except my father, my mother's gynecologist, and I.

No one said a eulogy or had anything but the original "your mother was so young" and "I'm sorry for your loss."

The priest didn't even pray for the family or my mother.

There was a small tombstone next to my mother's.

Yeah, weird, huh? My innocent ten year old mind never comprehended the idea that something small might be in the small tombstone. Something small? Like a stillborn baby. Oh yeah, that.

It all clicked later when I was thinking about all the times my mother called me her daughter or why she wanted me to wear dresses. I never thought…

I grew up knowing it wasn't my fault. I grew up knowing that if anything it was my father's fault. My mother's gynecologist pulled me aside at the funeral to tell me that my father was an enabler. He told me that my father didn't help her and that's why this happened. He cursed my father's name and made me promise to never grow up like him. I promised. I didn't even know that man but something made me believe that he was right. If my father had just done something for my mother maybe she wouldn't be dead right now. After that brief conversation I never saw that man again. I wonder if he would be proud of me now. Seeing where I've come and how I have gotten here.

August is coming soon. Don't worry. This is all related.


End file.
